October 27, 2024
Pastor John Hering
Daniel 3.16-28
Daniel 3.16-28
16 Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego answered King Nebuchadnezzar, “We have no need to answer you about this matter. 17 Since our God, whom we serve, does exist, he is able to save us from the blazing fiery furnace. So, he may save us from your hand, Your Majesty. 18 But if he does not, you should know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue that you set up.”
19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, and the expression on his face changed against Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego. He said to heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was usually heated. 20 He ordered some men, who were soldiers from his army, to bind Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego in order to throw them into the blazing fiery furnace. 21 So these men were bound in their coats, their pants, their turbans, and their other clothing, and they were thrown into the middle of the blazing fiery furnace. 22 Because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace was extremely hot, those men who carried Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego were killed by the intense heat of the fire. 23 But these three men, Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who had been tied up, fell into the blazing fiery furnace.
24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and immediately stood up. He said to his advisors, “Didn’t we throw three men, who had been tied up, into the middle of the fire?”
They answered the king, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”
25 He said, “Look! I see four men, who are untied and walking around in the middle of the fire, unharmed. What is more, the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
26 Then Nebuchadnezzar approached the door of the blazing fiery furnace. He said, “Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out!” Then Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego came out from the middle of the furnace. 27 The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the royal advisors gathered together and looked at these men. The fire had no power over their bodies. Not a hair on their head was singed, their robes were not damaged, and the smell of fire had not stuck to them.
28 Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who sent his angel and saved his servants, who trusted in God and ignored the king’s command. They gave up their bodies and did not pay homage or worship any god except their God.
It doesn’t surprise us when a statue is made of a powerful leader of the nation. The statue reminds us of their history, whether good or bad. Of course we would want the statue to remind us of what a wonderful leader the person is or was. You can see such statues in Washington DC of Lincoln, or memorials of WW I and WWII to honor those who have served our country. So, what about this statue of the leader in Babylon? Daniel recorded this for us,
“King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue. It was ninety feet tall and nine feet wide….4 The herald called out loudly, “5 When you hear the sound of the horn… you will fall down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace”
Daniel 3:1-6
We get the picture. The king was full of himself. It was bad enough that he demanded his nation to bow down to him, but then he took it to the next level by threatening those who refused to bow down to his statue to be thrown into a fiery furnace. When Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego refused to bow down the king was furious as Daniel also recorded, “But if you do not worship, you will immediately be thrown into the blazing fiery furnace. What god will be able to save you from my hands?” While Nebuchadnezzar burned with red-hot rage the three men remained cool as cucumbers! “What god will be able to save you from the hands of the king?” We join them to give a clear answer to his scary question: “Ours.” Yes, may the Holy Spirit lead us to
Courageously Bear Witness To God Who Delivers Us
Standing on the Truth of God’s Word
There are plenty of times when we know what the truth is, but we also know that if we speak the truth and do what is right, some people might be fuming mad! These three men took their stand. They acted (by not bowing down to an idol) and they spoke Courageously To Bear Witness To Their Savior God:
“We have no need to answer you about this matter. 17 Since our God, whom we serve, does exist, he is able to save us from the blazing fiery furnace. So, he may save us from your hand, Your Majesty. 18 But if he does not, you should know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue that you set up.”
These men risked their lives as they took their Stand on the Truth of God’s Word.
Sound familiar? Those were tough days when the Pope and the Emperor decided that they had a stronghold on religion and wouldn’t be bullied by this up-and-coming professor from the new university in Saxony called Martin Luther. The Roman Catholic Church and the rulers of the day had the power and the influence over the people that they had worked so hard for. They weren’t going to give it up. So, they flexed their muscles and made their threats. They threatened Martin Luther with excommunication and even death for the words that he spoke and the positions that he took. They put a price on his head and thought, “Who will be able to save him?” Martin Luther knew the answer. They asked him to recant – to take back what he had written. They asked him to lay down and to quietly fade into the darkness. But Luther was unwilling to fade and uninterested in taking his words back. He wasn’t going to lay down. Instead – he stood! Even in the face of the rage of the Church, even in the face of certain death, Martin Luther stood strong on the truth of God’s Word. It was at the Diet of Worms in 1521 that Luther stood up to Emperor Charles V as he spoke these famous words:
Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand. I can do no other! God help me. Amen.
Luther stood on the Truth of God’s Word and Courageously Bore Witness To God Who Delivers Us!
Application: The temptations to bow under pressure on the plains of Babylon, or to collapse at the feet of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1521 haven’t stopped. Those very same temptations reach you and me today. They sound like this, “It’s okay for your colleague to take God’s name in vain, I mean of all the words they could say, just saying, “Oh, my God!” isn’t all that big of a deal! Or “You better just act like those around you, otherwise they are going to think that you are weird!” Or “Don’t bother inviting a neighbor to church with you. It’s just going to hurt your relationship with them.” Or “Don’t you dare talk to someone about sin. You know they will just expose the sins that you’ve been trying so hard to hide!” These are tough temptations. Some would even say they are tougher temptations than standing on the Truth of God’s Word and confessing Jesus as Lord or face a firing squad because no one will really notice. No one, but God, that is! God calls on us to Courageously Bear Witness To God who Delivers Us, but too often we choose the comfort of sitting down and remaining quiet and still. We look for the easy way out instead of looking for and walking on the right path that serves our God.
That’s the lesson we can’t ignore and that we can’t excuse away. The fact that we fail to live bold faith lives every day means that we deserve to be thrown into the fire. And the fire that we deserve burns hotter and harder than Nebuchadnezzar’s. We deserve the fires of hell. We deserve to be separated from God now and into eternity. For the times that we chose comfort instead of truth, we deserve to have comfort stripped away from us and to be thrown into the place where there is no end to the torture. On our own we could never stand, never obey, never fix it, and never please God. On our own we could never earn anything besides death and hell.
But we aren’t on our own. The three men acknowledged that the God they worshipped was on their side and that they wouldn’t be worshipping the giant statue. Luther recognized God’s gospel promises and asked for God’s help as he made his bold confession and took his bold stand. And you and I don’t stand alone either. Courageously Bear Witness To God who Delivers You Standing on the Truth of God’s Word.
“God is our refuge and strength,
a helper who can always be found in times of trouble.”Psalm 46:1
Or
“6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid and do not be terrified before them, because the Lord your God is going with you. He will not abandon you and he will not forsake you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6
These promises of God’s Word fill us with confidence because we know we are
Standing with Jesus at Our Side
There are plenty of times we want people to be with us! Children want their parents to be with them when they go tricker treating near scary houses. You don’t want to go into a job interview alone, so you ask friends for advice or study on how to conduct a good interview on YouTube. The devil wants us to fail. The devil knows how powerless humans are against his temptations. He also knows how quickly and easily it is for us to fail to keep God’s law and how deserving we are of God’s eternal wrath. At these times you know how comforting it is to hear these words, “Jesus is with you.” So it was for the three men in the furnace, “Look! I see four men, who are untied and walking around in the middle of the fire, unharmed.” There are no greater comfort than knowing Jesus is with us when we are dealing with stressful times due to the ravages of sin. But Jesus is our power and our hope. Jesus is at our Side to Give us the Courage to Bear Witness to the God who Delivers us!
And it’s more than just knowing that he could. Generations of Old Testament believers lived knowing that they would go to heaven leaning on the promises of God. Likewise, we are saved by leaning on those same promises kept. We live confidently knowing the promise has indeed come true. Christ Jesus has satisfied God’s law for us. He has lived faithfully and boldly following his Father’s commands. He delivered us by surrendering his life for us. By becoming the sacrifice that we needed him to be. He bled so that our wounds could be healed. He died so that we could live! He rose so that we could stand next to an empty tomb one day, having been raised to a new and perfect life.
That’s what God has done. Jesus continues to Stand At Our Side So We Can Courageously Bear Witness to Our God Who Rescues us. What he did for Shadrak, Meshak, and Abendego he still does for us. What he didn’t do was take the fires away! The fires remained, but God delivered them from the flames harming them. Likewise, there will still be persecution in our lives. We’ll still have ailments – of body and of mind. There will be pressure to fit in and please people – people who are increasingly living their lives contrary to God’s Word. There will be people who treat us poorly because of the God that we follow. We’ll have to make sacrifices and will be called upon to pay the price to be a follower of Christ. But even in the heat of those tests and trials, we aren’t alone. The three men weren’t alone in the fire.
“Look! I see four men, who are untied and walking around in the middle of the fire, unharmed. What is more, the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
God doesn’t leave us alone. In fact, he gets into the fire with us. He promises us his strength and protection through his Powerful Word! God’s promises are bigger than whatever we are facing and loves us more than anything else ever could. Our God can do anything – he can move a mountain or walk on water or turn illness into health or protect us from the flames surrounding us – if it’s his will.
Remember, God never promised Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that he would save them from the furnace, but they knew that he could. They did believe that no matter what, that either way, a miracle was coming. Either God would give them mighty deliverance and spare them from the fate that Nebuchadnezzar threatened, or the flames would do what flames do, but God would still win! And there would still be a miracle as God would raise them to new life with him in glory. Either way they would live! What faith and confidence in the promises of God! So we live in the same confidence with Jesus as our side. Just because God can deliver us from cancer, doesn’t mean that he will! Just because God can cure our ailments doesn’t mean that every Christian will be perfectly healthy. Just because God can intervene to save us persecution doesn’t mean that is what he’s going to do. But he is with us in the fire! And he does promise us that he will never leave us or forsake us.
What a great way to live our lives! It is the Battle Cry of the Reformation! We live each day by God’s Word Alone, by Faith Alone, by Grace alone! What a great boldness of faith against every difficult day, to be able to say in every difficult circumstance, “either way a miracle’s coming.” Either God will use his power to deliver me, or my deliverance will be eternal as he opens to me heaven’s gates. Either longer life here on earth or eternal life with him in glory! With that attitude in our hearts, we can face anything.
That day these three men Courageously Bore Witness To God Who Delivered them by Standing on the Truth of God’s Word with Jesus at their side. It worked! What an inspiring truth comes from the mouth of the Babylonian King. After seeing the men’s faith and God’s power he proclaims:
“28 Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego, who sent his angel and saved his servants, who trusted in God and ignored the king’s command. They gave up their bodies and did not pay homage or worship any god except their God. 29 So I have issued an order that every people, nation, and language that speaks any blasphemy against the God of Shadrak, Meshak, and Abednego shall be cut to pieces, and his house shall be turned into a pile of rubble, because there is no other god who is able to save like this.”
The Three Men Knew it. Martin Luther knew it! And we know it too! May the Battle Cry of the Reformation Courageously Bear Witness To God Who Delivers us by Standing on the Truth of God’s Word with Jesus Standing at Our Side! Amen!
